I'm going to paint my house which has cedar siding and trying to decide whether to just use a brush or use a sprayer and back-brush it? Any thoughts? One thing I've noticed in working with the sample colors, the siding has a rough grain and with a brush it takes some effort and going over it multiple times to get the stain into all the nooks and crannies. I'm thinking a sprayer might be better at flying the paint into those spots, then the brush finishes working it in and smooths it out? Seems like it could go faster.
But it also seems that spray/brush would work best with two people, one to spray, one two brush? Don't have a sprayer either, but looks like I could buy a decent one for under $200.
Just assuming you will use a latex stain, since you mention spraying. I believe it's illegal to spray oil anywhere. Anyways, if you intend to spray latex, chances are it will set up (read dry) b/4 you have a chance to back brush it since you shouldn't spray a thick coat.
I am hoping that you get some useful responses to these questions since I would be interested in seeing what others think about this idea.
Given what you wrote, my inclination would be to suggest that spraying and back brushing would probably be the fastest and most efficient approach.
But, if it were ME actually doing it, I am not sure how well I would do with the sprayer and spray process. I would probably have to watch a ton of How-To YouTube videos to get a sense of how to do it and see if I think I could do it.. I would be concerned about the type of sprayer, the type of paint, how to keep the sprayer clean and working properly, avoiding overspray, avoiding spray particles ending up on neighbors cars, etc.
Rather than buying a sprayer, I think I would be inclined to rent a commercial grade sprayer and try using that first.
A friend and I did once spray the entire inside of a vacant 3-story home that we owned together at the shore many years ago -- all white ceilings and walls, and nothing fancy. His family had a painting business so he showed me what to do. It worked out okay, and it was fun to do and try, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.
I had a professional painting company paint the exterior of a 2 story colonial style home with asbestos siding and they used a sprayer for a lot of the work. They knew what they were doing and may quick work of the job. They put tarps on the roof to prevent overspray and carried hand-held aluminum(?) spray shields to block off areas that they wanted to protect from the overspray. The good news about doing exterior painting is that you don't have to worry about messing up the interior of the house and there aren't really overhead ceilings etc to deal with (just some eaves).
As far as brush painting without the spray process, the only thing I could think of would be to be sure to glob on lots of paint and then brush it out. The extra paint should cause the paint to flow into the crevices better. Too little paint on the paint brush can take forever to try to get the paint into the tiny crevices and spaces. I learned that from some professional painters when I was a teenager. Or, maybe roll the paint on fairly heavy and then brush it out.
My guess is that before I would venture into me doing any spray painting I would probably try a couple of other techniques first at ground level and see how it worked out.
Thanks for those videos. I had also found some videos that show spraying and back-brushing, but had not seen this guy's work. This one is really good because in addition to the video showing spraying, he has one that shows rolling on the same house, same siding so you can compare the two methods.
Thanks for the other post too. We are thinking along the same lines. I'm not convinced spraying and back-brushing is that much more advantageous. As I stated in my first post, I thought that spraying might fly the paint into the crevices and rough spots on cedar siding easier than other methods. With a brush, for example, it takes many passes to work it in. I thought the sprayer would get some in there right away and it might be easier to then work the rest in with the brush. But, if that is an advantage, of the 8 or so videos I've seen now, no painter mentions that. In fact, it's kind of the opposite, with them saying the back-brushing is necessary to work the paint into the crevices.
So, I'm left wondering what the compelling advantage to spraying on rough siding really is. The painters are saying it gets the paint on faster, then you can work it in with the brush. But... what about all the time spent taping off? And you can out paint on quickly with a long nap roller, then back-brush it, not taping off everything required. That is probably the method I'm going to try first.
I'm now starting to think if the spraying could be useful for some other parts of the job. For example, spraying the gutters. Oddly, in the video you found, he talks about taping off the gutters to do the fascia. It would seem to me it's far better to remove the gutters and paint them. That's what the pro did last time I had the house done and they came out excellent. I can't imagine all the work it must be to tape off gutters that are attached to a house. I also have large, 3 ft soffits around the house and am thinking spraying might be a good way to do those.
You also brought out some other good points, like will a sprayer work on thick stain, like the BM I'm planning on using or do I have to thin it out? Seems like it should work as is, but who knows.... I'm going to ask the paint store guy that. If I do decide to spray, seems like the Milwaukee sprayer that HD had for $180 on sale would be a good choice. It's 3000 psi, .31 GPM, 5/8 hp. Don't know what the deal is with that. They had one for sale near the tool rental in the store. Didn't say it was a return or anything. Regular price on line is about 2x that and they didn't have Milwaukee anything with the rest of the paint sprayers. But I did see a lot of people online that said they had bought one at HD and that they were very satisfied with it. Except people pointed out that the gun that comes with it, there is no extension wands available. I can see that being a real problem, especially if you paid $350 for it.
In short, I can see spraying when it's a smooth surface and that's all you have to do. But I'm not convinced there is a big advantage and maybe no advantage at all to spraying rough cedar.
You're welcome. I was glad that I found the videos and I saved them for my own future use. I started looking at more of his videos yesterday and they all seem pretty good.
I also went ahead and bought the guy's book on Amazon.com just for kicks. There is another book about real estate that I wanted to order anyway, but in order to get there free "super saver" shipping I needed to bring the order above $25, so I added his book to do that.
His book looks like an easy read and it looks like it talks some about the painting business in general. While I don't want to have a painting business of my own, I always thought that with the right training and not a huge investment, motivated high school seniors or college students could probably set up a small painting business for themselves as a way to make money.
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